What Is the True Nature of Empty Space?

[Tjl]

Where can I find information on shrinking and expanding space as a form of travel?

 

[selfAdjoint]

Google on Alcubiere.

 

[Draya22]

Where can I find information on shrinking and expanding space as a form of travel?

Doesn't speed shrink space as you get faster, and expand it as you go slower?

 

[sd01g]

what is space

Where can I find information on shrinking and expanding space as a form of travel?

Does anyone have a clue what 'space' is or is not? As far as I can tell, the concept of expanding or shrinking space is no more possible than existing outside of space. The human imagination is a wonderful tool for discovering imaginary things, but even the imagination has its limitations.

 

[giorbran]

I happened on your question and will try to briefly answer. I personally agree with the physicist David Bohm who thought of space as being highly ordered, an integration of all forms and structures. Bohm believed in "enfoldment" and used a hologram as an example. I am extending Bohm’s theory of implicate order with two new concepts that expose more clearly the hidden order in space, what I call grouping order and symmetry order. Both explain very simple and common patterns in nature and show how they produce two extremes of order, one in our past, and the other in our future. The order in the future, extreme symmetry order, is what we think of as empty space. But there is a major shift in perception. In this model, space is full rather than empty. The surface of perfect symmetry order is of course uniform space, what we see as nothing at all, but in actuality a perfectly flat space with no curvature or mass or energy is just balance. Everything, all "things" we know are imbalances, all matter, all energy, all form. Our modern position is that only imbalances constitute physical reality. From this new perspective one appreciates the physical reality of balance also, which in extreme, from our perspective as imbalances within an imbalance, is seen as nothing, because to us positive and negative imbalances are form. Everything else is formlessness. We see uniformity and balance as formlessness. But in lesser measure we see it as general patterns of symmetry in nature. Then at least we appreciate it.

Understanding and appreciating empty space for what it actually is, is quite involved. There are major implications to viewing space as full. It is a major switch to how we see the world. But for example concepts of contraction and expansion work just fine in this model, since contraction is simply a removal from the balanced totality, which creates two positive and negative imbalances, like two virtual particles. In extreme the two imbalances are the Alpha state of the big bang, and one negative counter part (which produces anti-time). Expansion occurs as those imbalances integrate, causing both to move toward an integrated fullness. That is what our universe is, one half side of two halves integrating. Of course this is a complete switch in our ordinary value system. We believe that as the universe is expanding there is a depletion of order and form. That is true, grouping order is decreasing, but symmetry order is increasing. Rather than seeing the physical universe as more than nothing, in this view all that we know becomes less than an everything.
I think your objection to contraction and expansion is well made though. I strongly believe that the default timeless condition of space (the real Universe) actually never changes. In moving from past to future I think there is merely a shift in the resolution of space, which we know as the Plank scale. I think this follows from our finding the geometry of the universe is flat. If its flat now, it was always flat, even at the first moment of the bang, and it will always be flat. So what is changing with time. This is an advanced application of two orders which I don't understand fully yet myself. But imagine your monitor. The same space can contain different resolutions. Each resolution defines a number of partitions the same space is divided into. Again the content of space can only be decreased from being infinitely full. The transition of states from the Alpha of the bang to the extreme of absolute zero, which now appears to be the destination of an accelerating expansion space-time, can be related to a transition beginning at resolution one and evolving to infinite resolution. In my own conclusions I believe everything is space. Time is a direction in space. Matter is curved directions in space. When it all unravels you have full space because all the potential/actual curvatures are in the final product. Of course to properly appreciate any of this you have to study the system. Hope this helps with your own ideas.
http://everythingforever.com

Gevin Giorbran